Sin City

And now Catherine could see it happening, in her mind's eye…

…back in her quiet corner of the dressing room, Tera tapes down her breasts and dresses in clothes similar to Lipton's. She shoves her hair up under a ball cap, glues on the fake beard and mustache and dons the dark glasses and the Lipton Construction jacket that she'd obtained from either one of his workers or a customer. She opens the window, watches for a quiet moment, drops into the parking lot where her car waits. Then, in drag, she drives to Dream Dolls, and somehow coaxes Jenna into the back room-either the disguise fooling the dancer in the dim lighting, or Jenna titillated by her former lover's masquerade.

Once in the lap-dance cubicle, Tera slips the electrical tie around Jenna's neck and yanks it tight. She watches the woman who betrayed her squirm in pain, then die.

Leaving the club, Tera returns-still in drag-and parks in the Showgirl World rear lot, waiting for the right moment to slip back through the window into the club, where she removes the disguise and hides the beard under some Vogue's and the jacket and boots in the vent. Soon she is to be back on stage, entertaining the masses, never having left the club.

When the police come to her apartment, she puts on the act of the grieving former roommate, certain that the plot will work and Ray Lipton will spend the rest of his life in prison.

In building her alibi, Tera had run so tight a timetable that the damning evidence-the fake facial hair, the jacket, the boots-had been stowed away at Showgirls, for future disposal. But with cops coming in and out of the club, and all these eyes on her, Tera hadn't yet dared sneak them out.

Catherine bagged the jacket and the boots, and then she closed up her field kit and gathered everything-it was quite a haul-and set them on the floor next to Tera's station. Toward the front of the dressing room, the black dancer was about to go out in a silvery nightgown over silver bra and thong.

'Are you on next?' Catherine asked her.

'In about half an hour. I'm gonna go out and stir up some business, first.'

Catherine showed her a five-dollar bill. 'A favor?'

The dancer snatched the fivespot out of Catherine's fingers, then asked, 'What?'

'Just go out there and see if Tera's occupied.'

The dancer shrugged, went out, came back in less than a minute.

'She's giving a private dance. Way down on the end-it's a separate room, but no door. Slip out past the bar during a song, and she probably won't see you. Between songs, she might.'

'Thanks.'

Catherine lugged the evidence outside and locked it in the Tahoe. As long as Tera hadn't seen her, Catherine wasn't worried about the woman splitting-she was giving a private dance, and still had no idea that Catherine was even on the premises, let alone what evidence the CSI had found.

With the Tahoe locked, Catherine checked the magazine on her pistol and reholstered it. Maybe she wouldn't be making the arrest herself, but Catherine knew she was dealing with a killer. She glanced up the street, saw no sign of Conroy and Sara, and decided she better get back inside.

Inside again, she stopped at the bar where that fiftyish bartender was using a damp cloth on the countertop. She said to him, 'Detective Conroy tells me you're an ex-cop.'

The guy nodded.

'You know who I am?' she asked him.

'CSI.'

'That's right. If there's trouble, what are you going to do?'

He eyeballed her for a long moment. 'Call 911.'

'Right answer.'

He absently wiped his cloth over the bar. 'Is there gonna be trouble?'

Shrugging elaborately, Catherine said, 'Anything's possible.'

'I've heard that theory.'

Catherine instinctively liked this guy-not too excitable, no nonsense, just the sort of mentality needed in a place like this. 'Detective Conroy and another CSI are on their way here now.'

The bartender waited for the rest.

'When they arrive, tell them I'm in the private room.' She pointed at the doorless doorway down on at the far end.

'No problem…Tera's in there now, y'know, with a couple patrons of the arts.'

'Yeah.'

'She in trouble?'

'Oh yeah.'

Again he wiped the towel over the bar. 'Wish I was surprised.'

'But you aren't? Everybody else seems to like her.'

He shook his head. 'They're not paying attention. She's a wrong chick, and I'm not talkin' about her sexual inclination. It's just…her train don't run all the way to the station.'

Catherine smiled. Cops never stopped being cops, retired or not. 'Can you make something happen?'

'Try me.'

'I don't want any other dancers and customers going in that room. Not till I come back out, or Detective Conroy goes in.'

'I can do that.'

Several moments later, Catherine slipped inside the private-dance room, which was much bigger than the closet at Dream Dolls. It was actually more semi-private, able to accommodate two 'private' dances at a time; the music in here was strictly from the outer club, leaching in through the doorless doorway-'I'm Not That Innocent,' Britney Spears. Two black faux-leather booths without tables were in there, so a dancer could essentially enter the booth and entertain; mirrors covered the walls, and right now no one occupied the table nearest Catherine.

In a red jeweled g-string and nothing else, Tera danced in front of the other booth, though her image danced on all of the mirrored walls. Catherine stepped forward so that the two guys sitting at the table could see her. They were burly guys wearing cheap suits, blue-collar bozos at a bachelor party maybe, one with a buzz cut, the other with longish dark hair. Tera turned her backside to her audience, looked at Catherine, nothing registering on the exotic features, and kept dancing.

'You want to join in, honey?' the longhaired guy asked when he spotted Catherine.

'You're a little overdressed, ain't ya?' the buzz cut wondered, and laughed drunkenly.

The criminalist said nothing, just leaned against a mirrored wall and waited; Conroy would be here soon, and if Tera wanted to dance the time away, that was fine with her.

But Britney Spears had run out of protestations about her innocence, and as soon as the song finished, Tera stopped dancing, and smiled coolly at the guys. 'More?' she asked them; she had numerous bills stuffed in the side of her g-string.

'What about your friend?' the buzz cut asked, nodding toward Catherine. 'Get her to join in!'

That was enough: flashing her ID, Catherine walked over and said, 'You two have had enough fun.'

The two burly guys exchanged looks and decided she was right, and split, leaving Catherine and Tera alone, just as a new song came on.

'I'm working,' Tera said, and flipped the green-backs at the side of her g-string with a red-nailed finger.

'Not at the moment, you aren't.'

Tera put her weight on one leg and smirked humorlessly at Catherine. 'I have to get ready to go on…. I promised a guy…'

'How much is a table dance?'

'Twenty-five.'

Catherine took a twenty and a five from her purse and held them out.

Tera's full lips pursed in a smile. 'I said one of you three cops would be gay…didn't think it was you, though…. What's your name again?'

'Catherine.'

Swaying seductively to the music, Tera asked, 'Are you on duty, Catherine?'

'No,' Catherine lied. 'I just…had to see you again.'

Still undulating, keeping time with her body, Tera smiled, and danced closer and closer to Catherine.